Rescuers in Peru were working Friday to save seven miners trapped for nearly four days by a landslide, the emergency services said. An avalanche of mud and rocks driven by heavy rain trapped the men on Monday in the mine where they were working in the southern Acari district. "Rescue work is continuing," Jacqueline Choque, head of emergency operations for the surrounding Arequipa region, said late Thursday.
"Extra teams have arrived to help with extracting the water, which has brought down mud, earth and stones. We need a submergible pump" to extract the mud, she added.
One of the miners escaped and alerted authorities, officials said. At first rescuers had been able to hear sounds from one of the trapped miners, but Choque said that the sounds stopped on Wednesday.